apparent than on Trump’s dealing with North Korea. In 2017, he referred to Kim Jong Un, the diminutive dictator of Pyongyang, as “a sick puppy” and dubbed him “little rocket man,” a nickname that has shown surprising staying power. It is certainly unusual for a U.S. president to openly mock a foreign head of state in this way – especially, as is the case with Kim, when the leader in question is the murderous capo of a crime family in charge of a glorified prison camp with nuclear missiles. But does that make Trump’s approach wrong? As of this writing, North Korea is making diplomatic overtures to the U.S. that would have been unthinkable in the Obama era. It may be a ruse, but Kim Jong Un has told South Korean envoys that the North is willing to negotiate over its nuclear weapons program. If this (still highly suspicious) outreach results in a diplomatic breakthrough and the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, Trump will have achieved the greatest American national security win in the post-Soviet era. And he will have done it while the “experts” seemed to think the immolation of Honolulu was imminent unless the White House staff seized control of Trump’s Twitter account. This instinct-based approach to complex international policy is either the secret weapon – or the Achilles heel – of Trump on the world stage. He is unpredictable, impetuous, and surreally confident. Traditionally, national security wonks place a high premium on stability in a leader’s words and actions. With Trump, national security policy becomes whatever he wants it to be on any given day. Whether that is best described
as adaptive or mercurial is in the eyes of the beholder. Though there are obvious risks to this approach, at the year-one mark it appears there has been a method to the madness. Breaking through stalemates and escaping quagmires requires new thinking. Say what one may about the Trump presidency, it is taking a fresh approach. Based on the major security challenges that face the administration (with some topics taken directly from Trump’s on 2017 National Security Strategy ) here’s a quick overview of how the Trumpian way could play out in 2018 and beyond. If there is a fundamental organizing principle for the Trump administration, this is it. More commonly referred to as “America First,” this is where Trump unabashedly breaks away from the philosophy of his predecessor. The Obama administration always favored a multilateral, U.N.-style consensus-building approach to security challenges. In Trump’s vision, the American government should always prioritize the interests of the American people. Trump’s full-throated embrace of security policy that recognizes the primary obligation of the U.S. to its own people is a needed course correction. It is also a rejection of the delusional cosmopolitanism that has seized the Democratic party and infected much of the GOP establishment as well. PROTECT OUR PEOPLE FIRST
22 March 2018
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